Wednesday was a big day: our first foray well above 4,000m hiking from Tuni to Chiar Qota in the Condoriri area. This area features mountains up to about 5,800m. And with the snow of late, many peaks at ¨lower elevations¨like Pico Austria, which we climbed 3 years ago, with its 5,300m had some snow.
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| A perfect mirror: laguna and sky. Great shot by Jan :) |
We drove to about 4,300m by car, basically up the valley on some unmaintaned dirt road, then hiked over about 2.5 hours to roughly 4,700m (about 15,400 feet). While the hiking is easy using well trodden paths, the altitude does make for slow but steady progress. And the vistas are awesomely beautiful.
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| In the background is La Cabeza de Condoriri (head) and to the north and south are its wings. Pico Austria, which we climbed three years ago, is the nearest snowy peak. |
After a fine lunch at the refugio at the laguna Chiar Qota, we took a walk around the laguna and admired the views along the way.
On the way back down I started to feel a bit of that queaziness that comes from active acclimatization: the beginning of a slight headache, slight oddity in the stomach. But I made it back to the car fine. Jan was just motoring along. On the car ride back, I felt quite bad but recovered by dinner time. Jan on the other hand developed that queazines and didn´t have much appetite at all. The good news: by morning we had both fully recovered our wits and got ready for Chacaltaya.
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| Happy, but starting to feel altitude effects on the way down. |
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| Totally gorgeous laguna Tuni with the Cordillera Real as backdrop. This is at about 4,350m at the end of this day´s excursion. |
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